Just because I may not be receiving lots of public displays of affection, does that mean I am not loved?

People seem to believe that the more public displays of affection (PDA) a couple shows and other public displays of affection, such as shout-outs or social networking posts, the more in love the couple is.

Which is completely judgemental.

Not everyone has the same love language, not everyone shows their love the same way, not everyone may even like PDA, and you will never see every little loving detail a couple does for one another.

For all you know, that “relationship goals” couple has a lot more issues than the couple who doesn’t show nearly as much PDA. I’m not saying this is always the case, but you can’t believe everything you see in public.

Everyone seems to get caught up in the whole idea of love having to be a certain way.

My man may not have huge public displays of love, but he shows me plenty of love. He may not post beautiful posts of me or buy me extravagant gifts, but he’s there for me when I need help and loves to make me food and do things for me. He may always talk about the future with me, but just because he doesn’t post that he’s going to put a ring on it, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t see a future with me. Anything he does for me or tells me personally shows me more of his love than anything he publicly does for me.

The image of love has been painted to be some sort of beautiful, perfect, and polished painting.

The truth is that love is not polished or perfect.

Love is imperfect, there are many bumps and mountains in life, but life is always better with your love.

If you don’t feel happy or loved, maybe outside perspectives are right. But if your feeling of love or unhappiness may be a temporary feeling, don’t rush into a rash decision. You have to make sure it isn’t a temporary feeling before you make a permanent decision.

If you feel loved and are truly happy, ignore what others say. Sometimes others choose to only see the negative in a relationship and don’t choose to see the positive and pure happiness even when it’s right in front of them.

-AMS

The picture above is of myself and my significant other. It was taken by my friend, Madisyn Leigh Pope-Schultz. Please do not remove her watermark if you decide to use this photo. She deserves credit for this awesome picture.

Do you ever just find yourself so distracted that you don’t know what exactly is distracting you? You’re just stuck in a place where you can’t think and don’t know what to feel. A place between your thoughts and feelings. A dim room with only a door knob from the inside. You’re the only one who can get yourself out of that dim room, but you are glued to the floor, unsure of what to do.

One day I won’t need to rely on anyone for anything other than moral support, love, and a good laugh.

Relying on someone isn’t a bad thing, but feeling like a burden or that you don’t have any other choice is not a great feeling. This current situation is not my final situation, this will not be a permanent feeling. Just thought I’d share my feelings.

I hope they break with every step I take. I have new decisions to make. But living with these huge walls and blocks make me live a life with no keys and just locks.

They need to disappear, but if they do, my very huge fear will soon be alive too.

I like to be in control, it soothes my soul.

I don’t like to put myself out there for any opportunities to get burned in the process.

That’s my biggest fear, I must confess.

I may appear pretty tough,

But my heart isn’t too buff.

It’s actually pretty weak.

Love is what it secretly seeks.

Always trying to be very discrete

in order to not be defeated and beat.

But there’s no such thing as being safe in love. If you actually think about it, there’s no such thing as being safe. If you’re “safe”, you end up actually hurting yourself more.

Way deep down, into your very core.

Wondering “what ifs and maybes”

“Could’ves and would’ves”.

It’s a lot better doing and knowing,

rather than wondering and thinking.

So now, no more questions or doubts.

Just feelings and letting it all out.

-AMS

1. I know I have grammatical errors in here, so I’m sorry about that.

2. If you’d like to write my ideas down, you don’t need to write the whole thing. But I really would appreciate it if you credit me, considering these are MY ideas and feelings that are written down. It is my intellectual property in a way.. This is my master piece. It’s like not giving an artist credit for their painting/drawing.

3. Please let me know if my work inspires you to to creatively do something whether it’s writing as well, drawing, music.. I’d love to see, hear or read anything that is inspired by my work.

4. I wrote this years ago and I’m still working on it. It’s a very hard thing to do!

***This picture is from my vacation from early 2014. We went on a cruise to Mexico (Baja California, basically). Photo credit to Alyssa Santana.

I have many flaws, plenty from a past cause. At times I’ve felt that I’m broken beyond repair. I’ve felt that I’m a bother or too much to bear. But I won’t give up on myself. Plenty have gave up on me when I needed the most help. And I know that I don’t fully love myself with all of these flaws, but I will get there. I want to fix some things about myself and that’s okay, but I am NOT a lost cause. I will get there someday.

-AMS

Never give up on yourself. Everyone has the opportunity to grow.
(Picture I took back when I had an iPhone 4. I chose it because I am blossoming into my own beautiful person and learning how to stand tall on my own.)

A little slice of craft beer heaven is located just about 20 minutes, or more, away from my hometown. I absolutely love Barrelworks. In a little over a year I have been lucky to have gone as many times as I have because not everyone has the luxury of living so close. This is an appreciation post. It is an absolute must visit if you are ever in the central coast of California.

The photos are taken by me. In the collage the top picture and top left picture (of the barrels) were taken by Cristian Limón on my phone. All pictures taken on an iPhone 6 plus.

I thought I should share a little more about myself. I am 22 years old and I stand at 4’11 and 3 quarters of an inch. Yes, I don’t like to round to 5 feet because I sadly never made it there, but I got pretty dang close if I might say so.

I come from a huge family of 8. I have 5 other siblings including a twin. I don’t usually like to say I’m a twin right off the back, but I figured I’d just get it over with on my blog. Other than my twin sister, I have 3 other sisters and a brother.
That is all I am going to share about myself for today :).

By the way, the picture I included with this post was taken by my friend Madisyn Leigh Pope-Schultz.

There are always pros and cons to where you live. I love Santa Maria, I was born and raised here. A lot of people have negative things to say about how “it’s so small” or that “There’s nothing to do here”. But that’s a very easy and simple minded way to view our beautiful city. Anyone can find the negative in something. You have to dig deeper and find the beauty in everything.

We have great, year round weather. Sure it’s pretty windy and I find that very frustrating since I get cold easily. But we truly are spoiled with our weather. It doesn’t snow here at all and it doesn’t rain much. Although I’d love for some rain to heavily pour down here because this California drought is just absolutely depressing. I’m not the biggest fan of rain, but as long as my socks don’t get wet, it’s not too bad.

Santa Maria is known for their “Santa Maria Tri-tip”, “Santa Maria-style BBQ”, Santa Maria is also known for their agriculture. We grow a lot of vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, celery, iceberg and romaine lettuce. We also known for our strawberries. Every year we have a strawberry festival. Another reason why rain is absolutely so necessary right now.

Something I find frustrating is that a lot of the time here, people are made fun of for aspiring to follow their dreams. Sometimes it’s not even their dreams, they’re just trying something different and others feel the need to talk negatively about it. I’ve seen memes about “People trying to model their way out of Santa Maria”. Which I think is horrible. People who were raised in the same area should be uplifting each other instead of trying to make fun of them. It’s funny, because a lot of those same people would be trying to be their best friend if they were to become famous or very well known.

I’ve been looked at a little differently, my friend is a photographer and she asked me a few years ago to be her “model”. I received a lot of positive comments about the pictures, but then everyone started assuming I was aspiring to be a model. Of which, I’m not. But I wouldn’t turn down a big opportunity in modeling if I were to be offered one. It’s fun and I like have awesome pictures of myself so I don’t mind doing it at all.
I know my mind is kind of all over the place right now, but I’m not trying to create the perfect blog. I’m just writing what comes to my mind right now.

The picture I’m posting is somewhere in Santa Maria, don’t remember exactly where. But there’s no filter used on it because I think it’s beautiful the way it is.